Join the Team

Note: Any Team Member may be removed at any time by any Administrator, whenever the Administrator judges harm is being done to web2Project. The Administrator must explain the decision to all Team Members immediately.

“How do I join the Team?”

It’s the most common question we get. People ask it via the forums, via email, via the phone, via IM, and probably more and other ways I have simply forgotten about. So here are some tips to joining the team:

• First of all, stop asking. No seriously, it’s annoying. Just keep reading.
• Next, contribute. Write fixes, write documentation, cleanup the User Interface, help others in the forums, submit good bug reports, review others’ fixes, and generally work to make the system better. Patches can be submitted and reviewed via the Forums, our Issue Tracker, or even better via GitHub.
• Next, contribute some more. Yes, one patch is helpful but it’s not enough.
• Next, wait for an invitation. Yes, the core team is invite-only. That doesn’t mean we don’t want input, patches, and help. In fact, just the opposite. Web2project code runs on thousands - if not tens of thousands - of machines. Therefore, commit access grants a great deal of responsibility and demands a high level of trust among ourselves and the community as a whole. It’s not something that we grant lightly.
• Next, interact with the rest of the team. Just because you’re invited doesn’t mean you’re done. Most people would say “it’s nothing personal”. Well, honestly… it is. For a team to be strong, vibrant, and innovative, we have to get along. We have to enjoy working together. Please understand that “getting along” and “agreeing” are not the same thing. I make mistakes, we make mistakes, you make mistakes. What you do as a result of them is important.
• Finally, keep contributing. Just because you’ve earned a spot on the team doesn’t mean your job is done. We have an aggressive roadmap. We’re always working to improve things, add functionality, work, work, work. That doesn’t mean you have to contribute every day but if you disappear and do nothing for months on end, people will notice.

When it comes down to it, we’d rather have a small, cohesive team that actively working together, appreciates challenges, and wouldn’t mind getting together over a tasty beverage as opposed to a huge team that looks impressive but doesn’t really accomplish anything.

Membership Voting Procedures

• When someone is invited to join the team, they are offered a “Provisional Team Member” role.
• After ~90 days, a vote is called. All non-Provisional Team Members and Administrators may vote: yes, no, or neutral (or equivalent: eg. +1, -1, and 0). This vote should occur on the web2project developers’ list where all members may see.
• To become a regular Team Member, the Provisional Member must receive at least 51% in favor with zero Administrators voting “no”.
  • Any non-Provisional Team Member who does not vote after 30 days automatically becomes a Absent-Neutral (0) vote.
  • Any Administrator who does not vote after 7 days automatically becomes a Absent-Neutral (0) vote.
  • If Absent-Neutral votes could make the difference between a winning and non-winning vote - ignoring the obvious potential of “no” votes - voting may stay open for up to 30 more days to resolve these votes.
  • If this additional 30 days passes with Absent-Neutral votes potentially making the difference, all Absent-Neutral from Members become “yes” votes and the totals are evaluated as above.
  • An Administrator’s Absent-Neutral vote does not change after any time period.
• If the Provisional Team Member does not meet the admission criteria, the Member’s role in the project will be re-evaluated and may be revoked.

Provisional Team Member vs Team Member vs Administrators

You’re asking: So what’s the difference?

Realistically, there’s not much:

• Anyone (even non-Members) has the ability propose, suggest, or evaluate new ideas, architectures, functionality, features, etc;
• All Members can update bugs;
• All Members have commit rights to Subversion;
• All Members are on the w2p-developers mailing list;
• All Members can share opinions on Provisional Team Members up for vote
• All Members can claim membership on the Web2project Team.
• All Members must work to protect the integrity of the project.
• Provisional Team Members may not vote on their own or any other Provisional Team Members’ candidacy.
• Administrators have credentials for all pieces of the website and supporting tools.
• Administrators must provide the resources - time, money, set - to keep the site operational.

Current Team as of 31 March 2016

• Administrators:
  • D. Keith Casey, Jr. - Project Lead - Austin, Texas, United States
  • Pedro Azevedo - Benevolent Dictator for Life - Aveiro, Portugal
  • Bruce Bodger - Oklahoma, United States
• Team Members:
  • Dr Klaus Bücher - Core Contributor - Germany
  • Trevor Morse - Test Master - Nova Scotia, Canada - Voted in 26 October 2009